Yehuda Duenyas has performed and toured with Richard Maxwell and Richard Foreman and is a founder of the National Theater of the United States of America. Here he has adapted and directed award-winning writer George Saunders’s “Pastoralia” – a darkly comic story of Ed and Janet, live-in employees at a historically-themed amusement park where they simulate the day-to-day life of early humans in a display cave dwelling: they roast goats, draw pictographs, and grunt at one other. The park has fallen on hard times; as a result, layoffs threaten Ed and Janet’s jobs. In this hilarious, heartbreaking tale, Ed and Janet are put to the test and ultimately must choose between their families’ livelihoods and their own dignity.
“This wonderful show amusing and bizarre…it strikes a chord within you that makes you leave feeling a tad unsettled.” -The Gothamist
“A potent, funny adaptation…heartbreaking and acutely familiar…” –The New Yorker
“Saunders has an ear for everything fraudulent and insidiously illogical about corporate America, and Duenyas has a reputation for bringing the illogical to life. Be forewarned: The absurdist take on corporate life although set in a papier mache cave here may seem to you too true.” –New York Press
“My advice to theatergoers is simple: Go… The two leads are superb… This play, with its story that is so human, so funny, and so sad, is a perfect example of how a false world can contain reality and of how good storytelling works.”
-Nytheatre.com
“The director and adaptor Yehuda Duenyas…creates a faithful and absurd comic style.” -The New York Times
Join George Saunders for Pastoralia Benefit Oct 8
4:30 Performance of Pastoralia
6:30 Post-show talk back with George Saunders & Yehuda Duenyas
September 21-October 9, 2005
Wednesday-Saturday at 8:30 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday at 4:30 p.m.
Benefit with George Saunders Sat Oct 8
$20($10 Members)